02 Oct 2012 09:10 pm

09 Jul 2014 10:07 am

11 Oct 2012 10:10 pm

from reading this site i see that ppl are retarded lol its only children that give girls problems in games even if they are 18+ they are still child like, doesn’t matter what gender you are games were made for anyone to play not just guys, and also girls aren’t the only ones in the kitchen I spend time there myself lol.

02 Nov 2012 06:11 pm

It’s really quite a shame to see that a lot of these males have been brought up in such shitty environments where they believe it’s acceptable to be abusive and demeaning towards women. Good on you for having this site, I am sick to death of being harassed and mocked simply because I’m female. Gender should not make a difference AT ALL, it’s really not that hard to understand.

14 Nov 2012 07:11 am

19 Nov 2012 08:11 am

21 Jul 2013 07:07 pm

20 Nov 2012 08:11 am

I completely hear where you’re coming from Jenny. I have had the exact same thing happen to me on many different platforms INCLUDING PC. I even recently got doubt from my sweetheart when he asked if I really wanted to be exposed to all the ugliness, because he can’t “protect” me from it. I don’t need his protection, and people calling me lesbian, butch, fat, etc. doesn’t make me suddenly need to jump up and run to check in the bathroom to see if my image has altered to the state of what the half wits have judged me to be simply because they’re threatened.

I don’t know why more men can’t be like the VERY few I’ve found while gaming who are supportive to my gaming by simply partying with me and not making a single comment about my sex/status etc. We have a great time whatever we end up playing and whoever gets owned doing so.

I take a lot of pride, as I’m sure you do in not having to be “carried” by my party members, and in holding my own even on extreme difficulty settings. The last thing that will cast a shadow over my gaming experience are people who leave us in doubt as to whether their balls have dropped or not. But it does make it extremely annoying to constantly be harangued by it every time without fail, and to learn to expect it from them.

“Oh my god you sound like a phone sex operator, how much a minute baby?”

“I just wanna give you a shower, a golden shower” <– uh… eww?

And every single sound byte you've already included in your blog.

I hear ya, and I'll watch your blog as a fan of another strong female gamer who isn't afraid to stand up to the opposition, and voice loud enough for the girl gamers our there to be heard.

07 Dec 2012 05:12 pm

I’ve always wondered if the guys who do this kind of stuff are the ones who are or were bullies in school, or in fact were the ones who were bullied. If it is the former then it means that they must have a need to hurt others in order to feel good about themselves, but if it is the latter then it means that they needs the anonymity of the Interwebs to hide behind because they cannot show the same level of aggression in reality because the tend to lose. Either way they need both the anonymous nature of the Web to keep their ego strong, but at the same time have a need to be the center of attention in order to feel self worth.

It has been said that there is nothing as pure, or as cruel as a child (bonus points if you know where that came from), but I think what is worse is the child who grew older, but never grew up. In my 20+ of gaming, from the day of the original Nintendo to the modern consoles and computer games, I have found that much of the misogynistic comments come from those in the age range of 12 to 25. It makes me wonder if the root cause of it is they are angry with some female figure in their life (mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, teacher, ect) and they are transposing that anger onto every female figure they meet. Or have they been taught through either family or society that men are dominant of women and must show such by brute strength and force?

In the end, I am glad that I have something that these people do not have: Perspective. If you treat people poorly, then everyone else will respond to you in kind.

08 Dec 2012 12:12 pm

I guess while it’s apparent that men make a LOT of assumptions here, it’s only fair that I do the same. Right? Right!

I’ve concluded that men can’t handle their “He Man Woman Haterz Club” being infiltrated by a chick who happens to love the same shit as they do. God forbid that we actually play well, play badly, are fat, are skinny, are whatever… we’re screwed. Whatever we do/say/think is up for criticism. I’ve put up with it myself from both young boys, all the way up to 40-something year old men.

15 Dec 2012 05:12 am

I’m not a gamer even a little bit, but I live with some guys that talk like this on the games that they play as well as in their real lives. It’s not as harsh with me, but I still get the “get back into the kitchen” or “you don’t know anything, you’re a woman” comments all the time. I really enjoyed reading your blog because it gives me hope that not all women will just take it in stride as “boys just being boys” or that they’re just saying these things because it’s anonymous, and maybe more women and halfway decent men will realize that this kind of thing isn’t okay. Keep it up!

21 Jul 2013 07:07 pm

06 Aug 2013 01:08 pm

29 Jan 2013 06:01 am

Personally, this issue isn’t too much of a concern to me, since I don’t use a mic on Xbox live nor do I talk that much on PC either. But whenever I come across a girl (which is actually quite common), I don’t come across a chauvinistic. If they are dicks, I’m a dick back and if I’m in a trolling mood, Ill troll them, but never ask for their number. This is a game people, a game. Its bad enough that we let it get to marrying via Facebook but this is the epitomy of stupid. I actually commend Jenny Haniver for taking the time to do this, and as a male hope that she succeeds in this very interesting project. Very well done!

03 Mar 2013 08:03 am

11 Mar 2013 04:03 am

My Mom was born in 1946, imagine “Eight is Enough” meets “Little House on the Prairie”. The house she grew up in didn’t get indoor plumbing until 2 years after I graduated high school. At the age of twenty she worked at a small local department store as a cashier, and didn’t go back to work after I was born. My Mom spent the majority of her life in the kitchen.

There is some bullying in K & 1st, but the floodgates don’t really open until 2nd. And it comes from all directions and both sexes. I’m not saying to sterilize the environment. Talk to your children, prepare them and educate them in how to deal with the situation. I suspect what you are documenting is the segment of society that grew up unsupervised. Or they may have been told that this is a kill or be killed world, so it is best not to be killed.

Lastly the human male can produce around 170 million gamete per day, the human female produces one a month. That equates to 5 billion to 1 per month. We can argue who exerts more energy or mass, but I say that is irrelevant. Maybe there isn’t a direct correlation with the drive to reproduce and the production of gametes. Again if one or both parents took a more active guiding role this kind of behavior wouldn’t be so common place. I’m not going to give my recommendations on when to start, except it is probably 4 years sooner than you think.

Clearly damage has been done with past generations, we can only hope for future ones. Maybe theirs will improve, where our’s did not.

04 Oct 2013 09:10 pm

09 May 2013 09:05 am

You need to grow up jenny, everyone trolls everyone on the internet. And please lets not pretend this is exclusively happening to females and they don’t also troll.

Seems like you couldn’t handle words thrown at you while gaming, and now your actively searching for similar situations for your blog to rant about. As a result it seems you have attracted other weak minded people that cannot deal with being trolled.

09 May 2013 09:05 am

09 Jun 2013 04:06 pm

When the comments are "suck my dick bitch", "tits or gtfo", or "holy shit you're a GIRL? Everyone knows only UGLY women play video games!!" then yes it has everything to do with gender. That's not hard to figure out. Some people seem unable to separate a woman's personhood from her genitals.

07 Jun 2013 09:06 am

Mountain, you need to do some reading before saying such stupid shit. Female gamers get a ridiculous level of hate, and sexually demeaning crap spewed at them. Men also immediately assume that women can’t play or only play to “look cool”.

I’m a woman, and I’ve been gaming since before you were out of diapers apparently. Your attitude is illustrative of the problems in the gaming community and the entire reason that I never play with random groups.

If you can’t grow up and “trash talk” without being sexist, racist or homophobic then you shouldn’t be out in public virtually or in meat space.

21 Jul 2013 08:07 pm

'It just makes everyone mad?' sure. But it also provides material for discussion. It is important that such topics are discussed, and not simply dismissed with 'turn off your mic, then! '. If it creates a fire, so be it.

21 Jul 2013 08:07 pm

23 Sep 2013 07:09 pm

It does achieve something positive.It shows other women that they aren't the only one's dealing with this shit, and that it's a common occurrence in the gaming\nerd culture. The only people it makes mad are the whiny men.

You wouldn't know it, though, because of how many women are silent or hide their gender. Why do they do that? Because of crap like this, the stuff Jenny is talking about.

I don't know what the proportion of women who play FPS and other well-known console games is, but I challenge you to prove that all female gamers "waste their time on the Sims" because I really do not think that's true.

2. Lots of people don't like Anita Sarkeesian, but guess what, she isn't the poster child of female gamers or of feminist gamers. Jenny does her thing on her own, so evaluate her for who she is, rather than lumping her in with someone who has nothing to do with her. And your line about change being "too drastic for men to accept" is so whiny. Oh noes, people are asking us to behave like decent people! I can never accept that! waah

22 Jun 2013 04:06 pm

I have experience playing many different genres of games – FPS, MMO, RTS, etc. Depending on the title, the maturity level of the community varies greatly. Some of them however leave me incredulous – I can’t play for one hour without seeing a racist, homophobic, or sexist statement.
As a female gamer, I prefer to have gender anonymous tags and not use voice chat for the very reasons you brought up. When hiding behind this veil of anonymity, there is no sexual harassment but still the derogatory comments continue.
I read some of the defenses for such behavior made here by agitated commenters, but I still just can’t understand. When insulting someone for their offensive behaviour, players call them “jew” or “black” instead of “rude”. When insulting someone for poor gameplay, they call them “gay” or “fag” instead of “noob”. I don’t have a problem with profanity – call them an asshole, a fucker. Why the discrimination?
The problem isn’t limited to sexism alone, although it is also an issue. They are reflective of underlying issues with our society in general.
I just wish I knew how to bring about change, because “sucking it up” isn’t the answer. Ignoring the issue never solved anything.

02 Jul 2013 04:07 pm

There’s some law which states that the comments on any article about feminism justify the need for feminism, & while this article isn’t necessarily /feminist/, it’s a similar direction & the comments are fulfilling that law.

06 Dec 2013 03:12 am

08 Jul 2013 05:07 am

The responses to some of these offensive outbursts in some instances run the danger of playing to problematic structures. For instance, responding with sexual belittlement requires and enforces the structures to belittle another person on grounds other than their simply being horrible people. Another example was the need to assert that Jenny wasn’t overweight when male gamers decided she was – it just seemed to imply that she would be diminished if she was.
Given individual difference and distribution, some female gamers may very well physically resemble the stereotype being discussed, but if wouldn’t affect their worth as people or their mastery of the game. It still seemed to ascribe worth along the lines of some fairly standard construction of gender.

24 Nov 2013 08:11 pm

I noticed this as well. Bias is impossible to completely shake off, and we can only do the best we possibly can. That said, I think the overall message of the website is quite positive and inspirational.

23 Sep 2013 07:09 pm

So women should just miss out on a fun part of gaming, which is socializing, so they don't get terrorized, instead of teaching men that sexual harassment, stalking and rape threats aren't ok? That makes sense.

23 Sep 2013 07:09 pm

It's funny how some of these little boys think that gaming is a male only thing and that girls should have no right to play. Even though I've been gaming for 18 years and bought all my own shit. I'm sorry, but unless you're my age and mommy and daddy doesn't buy everything for you, don't talk shit.

21 Aug 2013 11:08 am

Keep up the good work. Speaking as a male who grew up in the geek gaming culture and now as a father who wants to share his gaming passion with his daughter as she grows, this kind of misogyny is unacceptable in any form.

Won’t break out into a “back in my day” story, but a gaming gal was once a treasured rarity to be protected and encouraged.

01 Sep 2013 11:09 am

06 Dec 2013 03:12 am

First of all, learn basic grammar. "You're" is the appropriate form to use when you choose to throw out idiotic insults based on your own insecurity. By choosing to call someone "ball-less" as an insult, you're revealing a deep-seated lack of confidence in your own gender role.

Secondly, who the Hell gave you the right or authority to speak on behalf of women, you pathetic, illiterate troglodyte?

Misogyny is unacceptable, in any setting and any form. Grow up, and learn better insults before you make an even bigger ass of yourself.

10 Sep 2013 09:09 pm

The moment you Feel the need to say you’re sorry for your entire gender.
I’m i Dude and things like this I hear about guys doing this makes me sick. No wonder people think chivalry is dead, because there are so little Men actually Man enough to do the right thing regardless of gender. Well hopefully i wom’t get bashed for this but I’m willing to stand for my beliefs. If there is anything i can do to help let me know

20 Jan 2014 05:01 pm

18 Sep 2013 05:09 am

27 Sep 2013 04:09 am

Forget about those morons that writes that “this is not helping in anything but spread the fire.” We need to spread this form of harassment and make the world acknowledge it.
It’s also very sad that the men who agrees with us are also diminished by their own gender, as if they can’t be ‘real men’ if they respect women, if they actually THINK for themselves.
I’ve been playing games since I’ve been very little,s till do today; and I don’t play online for these reasons. I also tend to hide my gender everywhere on the net for those reasons also!! As women, we’re always living in fear, always, and we have very good reasons to…
I am very disappointed in this world and fear women will always be abused and treated like shit.
“we’ve made a lot of progress, women aren’t treated as badly now!” YEAH RIGHT. Everywhere I go I get the disgusting treatment; on the net or in real life.
And as many females, was abused verbally many many times, plus sexually by men you don’t know or men that you trusted.
And if you come off as a strong woman, you get all the stereotyped come back, “so you hate men!?” etc.
I am really sick of it all. You’re a strong woman…other women needs to know they are not alone in this HELL.

10 Oct 2013 11:10 am

Everywhere in the world there are some places with more decent or more creepy people. You will find that console gaming is typically ghetto; a magnet for the immature and freaks; any dimwit, uneducated teen or adult, ex-con, or deviant can play on a console. In fact, they are the target consumer. The console is designed for people who want to play games with a near non-existent learning curve. There is a high price for this. It’s often much more expensive than computer gaming, especially compared to open source. The drawback and appeal of console gaming is peer to peer connectivity, simplicity, and lack of accountability.

PC gaming tends to have a more mature, sophisticated, and accountable crowd. There really isn’t much choice. One has to be intelligent to operate a PC. Of course, there are always exceptions, however, in PC gaming there are tighter administrative controls on who can participate, better tracking of behavior, and multiple layers of dealing with behavioral issues.

I think you should evolve to PC gaming. If you were playing on a game server (ran for PC), the administrator, GSP, or the data-center could be held liable for all unethical or illegal behaviors; somewhere up the hierarchy, someone is responsible. Typically, with PC gaming, one joins a clan or game server where there are administrators that will kick or ban misbehaved players; if there are none, simply find another game server. This isn’t always the case (you will find hostile places), but at least one can choose favorite servers. It’s just like real life, one finds places to frequent and others to avoid. Eventually, a player either forms or joins a community of other players that share the same values. Console gamers don’t really have that kind of choice — it’s too random and anarchistic — the console bus can stop anywhere and often in the worst areas of town.

Will console gaming ever change? Possibly in time, but it will take a serious lawsuit and someone with a lot of money to go after the publishers and developers who aren’t policing their communities well enough. There will always be crazy people. It’s up to the authorities (in charge of the infrastructure) to take ownership and control of the situation.

It simply comes down to lifestyle choices. I will make an unusual comparison with outdoor parks. This seems to be a pattern. I’ve visited parks that are trashy: full of drinking, smoking, and generally low class people. The trashy people like to go where they can be trashy. I’ve found other places that have rules for everything — no smoking, dogs on leash, no alcohol, designated seating areas, heavily monitored, strict rules of conduct, etc. The parks with strict rules are family friendly: full of educated, career minded, mature, moms, kids, or retired people. Trashy people tend to be very uncomfortable or easily bored at family friendly parks. This is where it gets interesting concerning cost. The family friendly parks, with all the rules, have free parking! The trashy people parks have paid parking! They are willing to pay extra to have a simple, garbage, no-rules lifestyle. It’s a matter of choice.

Do you see the parallel? Which park do you go to? Which gaming system do you play on?

06 Dec 2013 03:12 am

So you're trying to say the problem is somehow an issue of "that clique is full of jerks, but mine isn't?"

Bull. PC gaming has its own share of jackasses and misogynists, and the crap I've heard people throw around in the PC realm is just as bad.

People should be able to play what they want to, where they want to, without being subjected to this kind of sickening abuse. "Evolve to PC gaming" is just telling Jenny and other female gamers to "move along."

26 Feb 2014 07:02 am

25 Apr 2014 12:04 am

I stumbled across this an was annoyed.i play all the time.yes there are a lot of assholes.but really all you have to do is ignore them.it looks to me like you really like the attention.so much so that u you put em up on here just to relive them.if u don’t want the attention then don’t ask for it.they start messaging u then block em.ya we shouldn’t even have to do that.but truth is u do.who decides who’s names u reveal an which names u keep hidden.all in all reading this shit was annoying.get over yourself.quit acting like you aren’t trying to get attention.i apologize if this sounds rude.its not meant to.

05 Jun 2014 02:06 pm

I know this happens but I think you may have been playing the’wrong’ games. I played Guild Wars 1 for nearly 7000 hours and am close to clocking 4000 on GW2. I feel respected and supported by my guild (which has a large percentage of women – some of whom are respected Commanders in our version of PvP). When any troll starts on map chat with sexist sh*t he is told to shut up immediately and anyone who answers is told ‘Please, don’t feed the trolls.’ There is always the report button to Arenanet – which they respond to quickly and the block button – where this ‘person’ just ceases to exist. I am a 63 year old gamer btw but only my closest guildies know this – it’s just not relevant.

As to sluttie armour – I like dressing up – at 63 I don’t get much chance in RL.

14 Jun 2014 07:06 am

I’m not a big online gamer, mostly due to an internet connection which was once (literally) being transmitted by a snail trail. Nevertheless, I play video games obsessively and because of the freedom they allow and actively promote. I don’t have to sit there for two hours and be dictated to like in a film: I can be as good or evil as I see fit. What’s more, something like Skyrim let’s me be black or white, a man or a woman, an altmer or a bosmer. Gaming is, in my view, a movement for freedom in entertainment media like no other. You could even say I believe in it.

What I have seen on this site, therefore makes me feel sick. I haven’t been exposed to anything on the level of heightened, misguided vitriol that NKA has painstakingly collated (seeing as I am a white, heterosexual man) but good god it makes me angry. It hurts people on an individual level, makes scum feel they can get away with these levels of misogyny and ignorance in the real world and tarnishes the image of gaming as a whole.

Single player experiences aren’t, of course perfect. The emphasis on masculinity and the sexualisation of women is truly unacceptable. Maybe, this is where it can start to change. More games like Skyrim (which can be read as nearly a feminist paradise) or Bioshock: Infinite which shows an intelligent, independent and exceptionally admirable young woman in Elizabeth might be able to shift the impetus away from gaming being a world where women are the exception, there for their bodies, to one where they are in the thick of it and on even terms with men. Online gaming should, resultantly follow suit. The world of gaming belongs to everyone and I’m glad this website is here as a conduit for people who want to express those sympathies.

16 Jun 2014 07:06 am

i feel for you i do as a gay guy i get some pretty nasty flak if people find out and then you have the people who throw around the word gay or lesbian and other words as casual insults, if i ever hear a girl being abused in a lobby i will try and direct it away from them by given the room reason to target me instead normally by telling them my sexuality, end of the day i have grown up being bullied my whole life and can ignore it but not every one can so it is better me with my thick skin be the target than someone who may not be able to handle it, not saying women are weak because they are not the fact they continue to game even after all this flak is a testament to the strength of women, i hope one day people can game online with out their gender, sexuality, race or even nationality being used against them in insults.

i am glad this site exists to highlight the issues people face in game lobbies but also sad that such a site has to exist in the 21st century.

04 Sep 2014 11:09 am

[…] nothing, told that there is no misogyny in gaming, while being threatened with sexual violence and called any number of misogynistic slurs. I can only imagine the cognitive dissonance necessary to threaten to rape someone for claiming that […]

08 Nov 2014 05:11 am

My absolute favorite thing about female harassment is we’re always being told to shut up about it. “Oh so just don’t use feminine tags or a mic (not using a mic basically removes the only good part about online play: real time interaction, but OK) and you’ll be okay.” Is the equivalent of saying: Just pretend you’re not a woman. Yeah, no thanks. Can’t really do that IRL ya know?

Or: Well making a site like this is only pissing people off (cuz women should never do that, we’re all demure and shit) I’m glad this site pisses people off: just proves there’s something wrong. Otherwise they wouldn’t be defensive.

20 Mar 2015 09:03 am

To be fair I hate trash talking whether it be to male or female, its an annoying distraction to everyone in the game not just the abuser and victim.

I understand any persons needs to raise awareness as they deem it enough of a concern to do so, that’s fine.

What I don’t agree with is people making their own theories as to why the trash talkers do it, you claim they must hate a female figure in their life or they’ve been brought up that way so they must want to vent on women. In my personal opinion that’s bollocks, I treat any girl or woman that I come across with respect and patience as I also do with boys and men, yet I have been mistreated by females during my life and its shitty yeah, as a result I suffer from various psychological issues from abusive relationships and females degrading me both online and in reality but I don’t give them shit, I just endure cause I don’t want to increase the drama that’s already happening. So if I can brush off abuse and play games peacefully after all females have done to me then why can’t others?

Simply said because people are a**holes. Men and women can both be abusive and cruel if the mood takes them, they don’t need a reason, it just has to be one of those days where they don’t give a fuck and just want to piss people off, its part of being human unfortunately, some people just thrive on grief whether its in a joking manner or serious some people just do it without thought.

So rather than try and understand it and point fingers, take that finger, hit the mute and the block and the report while you’re at it and get on with your game.

People are going to be utter d**ks so just block them out and do what you want to do. Sorry about the long rant everyone but I hope you took the time to read and sort of understand my own point of view, not saying this is fact and everyone agrees, this is just how I see it.